CO129-618-3 University of Hong Kong- grants and financial assistance 6-5-1948 - 10-6-1948 — Page 17

part of the University buildings, laboratories and equipment, it could only reconstruct an institution of University status by building up, as it were, from the bottom, and therefore admitted in 1946 students to first year classes, and in 1947 students to first year and second year classes. So, year by year, the student body of the University is being re-established. Buildings have been restored as they were required and equipment ordered (mainly in the United Kingdom) has come to hand, but very much more slowly than was hoped, and at greater cost.

The success of these extemporized measures has been such that it is now believed that the time has come formally to restore the University by the re-

This has establishment of its governing authorities. been made practicable by a generous decision of the Government of Hong Kong to undertake the greater part of the financial burden of restoring the whole of the

The University is, University buildings and equipment. therefore, in a position to assume that by the year 1952, by successive stages, it will be able to do all the work that it was equipped to perform in the year 1940.

Recruit-

As soon as the University authorities have been appointed and are able to meet, measures can be taken to fill vacancies in the staff of the University caused by deaths and retirement. Immediate steps will be taken for the selection of men for the Professorships in Medicine, Surgery, Pathology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and for Lectureships in some of these subjects. ment of suitable men at this time will be difficult but it is confidently expected that the kind of work that can be offered to men will attract them to the Colony. The return to the status of 1940 should mean that development then in progress will be taken up at

This means that Honours courses the point then reached. in various subjects within the faculties of Arts and Science will again be offered from September, 1948, that an increased number of medical students will be admitted and that provision for post-graduate studies in medicine will be made. Provision may have to be

Training made for pre-clinical studies in Dentistry. of teachers of English for China can easily be combined with the training of teachers for the schools of the Colony.

In place of the degree course in Mechanical and Electircal Engineering, which the University in 1939 had decided to relinquish, provision may possibly be made for the training of architects.

The purposes for which the University was founded are not forgotten, and, as already indicated, the question of developing it to the standards recommended by the Committee will be further considered

In the meantime the as soon as practicable.

re-establishment of the University on its 1940 scale will, in itself, provide an opportunity for growth, not necessarily in numbers but in maturity and in diversity of activities. The incentive towards growth will come from within the University and from the desire of the people of Hong Kong that the University should reflect in realms of science and intelligence, the success of the

The interest Colony in the realms of trade and industry. of the Colony is shown in the generous measure of immediate help given by the Hong Kong Government.

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